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Sakai Project Outcomes, Reflections, and Future Endeavors: A Collaborative Journey

This detailed report delves into the outcomes, reflections, and future plans of the collaborative Sakai project involving James Hilton from the University of Michigan and Brad Wheeler from Indiana University. The narrative covers activities, community building, maintenance transitions, architecting for portlets, user perspectives, strategic decisions, and the lessons learned from their engagement with open-source projects and sustainable software economics. Explore the challenges, successes, and strategic decisions that shaped the Sakai project's evolution and impact on academic communities.

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Sakai Project Outcomes, Reflections, and Future Endeavors: A Collaborative Journey

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  1. Outcomes, Reflections, and What's Next James Hilton University of Michigan Brad Wheeler Indiana University

  2. July 04 May 05 Dec 05 Jan 04 SEPP Conference172 Attend Aug 1.0 Dec 1.5 Release Pilot • Sakai 2.0 Release • TPP • Framework • Services-based Portal • Sakai Tools • Complete CMS • Assessment • Workflow • Research Tools • Authoring Tools "Best of" Refactoring Activity: Ongoing implementation work at local institution… Primary Sakai Activity Refining Sakai Framework,Tuning and conforming additional tools Intensive community building/training What we said… Sakai Project Timeline Activity: Maintenance & Transition from aproject to a community • Michigan • CHEF Framework • CourseTools • WorkTools • Indiana • Navigo Assessment • Eden Workflow • OneStart • Oncourse • MIT • Stellar • Stanford • CourseWork • Assessment • OKI • OSIDs • uPortal • Sakai 1.0 Release • Tool Portability Profile • Framework • Services-based Portal • Refined OSIDs & implementations • Sakai Tools • Complete CMS • Assessment Primary Sakai Activity Architecting for JSR-168 Portlets,Re-factoring “best of” features for tools Conforming tools to Technology Portability Profile

  3. In production use with >25,000 users at uMich Full 1.5 Pilot at IU January-May05

  4. Perspective Sourcing decisions are not new…. Build Build or Buy Build, Buy, or “Borrow” 1970-80s 1990 2000 2010 Benefits Risks

  5. Commercial Coordination Closed IP LicensingFees Creating Software Unbundled IP & Support + Commercial Support Options Sustaining Software Maintenance Fees In Search of a Better Model… …for how we pay and what we get. Software is not free. Stakeholder Coordination Open IP Educational Community License Community Source Projects Bundled IP & Support Partnering Organizations Objective…sustainable economics and innovation for satisfied users

  6. Twin Peaks Navigator PKI Dartmouth Chandler/Westwood Control of Code & Destiny But with responsibility too! • Cost of Systems • operations, maintenance, timing, evolution • Functionality of Systems integration, standards…innovation

  7. Michigan, Indiana Independent decisions for community source engagement

  8. Why UM went down the Sakai path • Legacy system with no positive trajectory forward • Saw market consolidation in CMS • Saw the potential of tapping core competence and starting a virtuous cycle of development/teaching/research • Strategic desire to blur the distinction between the laboratory/classroom between knowledge creation/digestion • NRC report and the need for collaboration • A moment in time opportunity (Mellon and synchronization) • Leverage links between open source, open access and culture of the academy/wider world

  9. What goals did we set? • Replicate functionality of legacy CMS and Worktools • Find collaborating partners (Sakai is at least as interesting from the collaboration experiment perspective as it is from the technology perspective.) • Get better at discerning open source winners. It shouldn’t be like playing the lottery. • Evolve a business plan that would be sustainable • Implement parts that were not built at UM

  10. What have we learned? • Collaborations are hard work and they require shared vision (when visions vary, or when they change, collaborations struggle). • Projects like Sakai need to be entered into in a fully intentional way. • Separate board with dedicated developers. • Sakai sits between institutions with a clear governance structure. • Open source requires real project discipline. Sakai is as spontaneous as a shuttle launch. • Learn to balance pragmatics and ideals and trust your partners.

  11. What have we learned? • Hard to test for scale • Importance of alignment/support from Provost/President • It’s good to be public. Our success or failure will be spectacularly public • There are 89K open source projects in the naked city. Our focus, and potential sweet spot for collaborative action, is open source at the enterprise level. Think Linux on servers versus desktops; Apache versus Mozilla; and Sakai versus classroom specific applications. • Zeitgeist is critical. Important to link with repository efforts, open access push, and scholarly publishing opportunities if we are to keep academic commons/culture open.

  12. Sakai, OSPI, Kuali Lessons • Collaboration is a capability • Organizational readiness, learning • Value for the future • Choose your partners well • Like-minded institutions, timelines • Sakai structure is promising • Small core development team • Large partners organization

  13. Community Source Projects “Community source describes a model for the purposeful coordinating of work in a community. It is based on many of the principles of open source development efforts, but community source efforts rely more explicitly on defined roles, responsibilities, and funded commitments by community members than some open source development models.” …. from www.sakaiproject.org “Institutional Investments for Institutional Outcomes”

  14. What’s Next • More leverage between community source projects • Improving commercial support options • Lots of tools and extensions • The model used for Sakai is broadly applicable • The Partner’s Program grows

  15. 8-14 June 2005 - Baltimore

  16. Outcomes, Reflections, and What's Next James Hilton University of Michigan Brad Wheeler Indiana University

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